That looks pretty cool Kristin. I do not have one but now am intrigued. Is it hard to do?
Or do you just slice & dice, arrange, and voila you have scoobie snacks?
That would be great for making some for Simon & on the trail mixes.

That looks pretty cool Kristin. I do not have one but now am intrigued. Is it hard to do?
Or do you just slice & dice, arrange, and voila you have scoobie snacks?
That would be great for making some for Simon & on the trail mixes.

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It's rather easy really! Yup, slice and arrange, leave sit for so many hours and yummy snacks. They come with a manual that has tips on how to prepare certain foods and what sizes to cut things so that's a good guideline to start with.
I sliced everything too thin and left it on a bit too long, so it's a bit of trial and error. The book said it would take a day, so I left it on when I went to work and 10 hours was too long and I wasn't there to check every few hours, so completely my fault. I live in the dry desert with no humidity so everything dries faster here.

I put some cinnamon and a little sugar on the apple slices and that was tasty! The pineapple slices were out of a can and those came out nice. Banana chips are a little sweet so those were good.

That's 1 apple and 1 banana.

The dogs liked all of the fruits I made, good treats for us and them!
I started with fruits I had in the house, so if I messed up my 1st time it wouldn't cost a lot of $$ lol.
I'm doing meats next, I'm reading those stink so I'm going to do it on the back patio since it's 60 degrees here.

Awesome pics Kristin, I am sold now & with my job ending in 5 days will have time to make up bunches of snacks lol...
Thanks for the pics!
Simon and I can definitely use healthy alternatives to our snacking...

I use a "Top Eye" round roast, it's a big muscle with very little fat, just a little on one side that comes of very easy, slice against the grain (I use a meat slicer for uniform cuts) soak/marinate in Dales for at least five hours, sprinkle on my own spices of equal parts red, white and black pepper and garlic salt. Then to the drying process. After it's dried, I like to keep it in a gallon zip lock bag, but NOT sealed all the way, this let's some moisture back in (humidity) and makes the jerky way better IMO. I actually discovered this by accident, but have kept doing it.

I use an Excalibur for my jerky. I used to use the Ronco one, but it doesn't heat evenly and you can't control the temperature.

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Nope you can't control the temp and it's not perfectly even, but that probably varies by what you have on the trays too. In the book it says to rotate the trays up and down and also turn them every couple hours to dry more evenly.
It was the only one I could find locally and I just needed a cheapo for dog treats . I don't suggest it for people doing some serious dehydrating!

Judy....I just made chicken livers for the dogs and they love them! They took a long time to dry and I had to put them on wax paper till they hardened a little or they will drip through the holes. I forgot to snap a pic. Also, don't feed too many cause liver can cause the runs...

Judy....I just made chicken livers for the dogs and they love them! They took a long time to dry and I had to put them on wax paper till they hardened a little or they will drip through the holes. I forgot to snap a pic. Also, don't feed too many cause liver can cause the runs...

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Thanks Kristin...Simon will love it...going to pick one up today since I have more time on my hands. How did they like the stew meat jerky?

Thanks Kristin...Simon will love it...going to pick one up today since I have more time on my hands. How did they like the stew meat jerky?

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Loved it of course!! lol
Those have to be cut into smaller chunks and dried for a long time. They worked well because they aren't a fatty cut. I'll probably do these again soon. I had a hard time cutting the chicken breast thin enough, so I have to figure out some other way to do that or have the butcher do it.

I've found that meats take about 18+ hours here and fruits/veggies take about 8+. Varies by how humid and the temp of where you live too though.

Oh and do meats in a garage, not in the house, cause they stink!

I didn't really cut up the chicken livers much, except the big chunks I cut those apart. Basically they were about the size of a quater to half dollar each. Dry till brittle and crispy. I feed 2 a day max.

I'll do sweet potatoes, apples, bananas and pineapple again in a couple weeks.